Should tuned discs be legal for tournament use?

ZAMson wrote:did Innova have to resubmit the Champ models once they started trimming the flash off the nose? seeing as how so many tech specs still show a fully-flashed diameter, i think not.

I have no idea why, but the CE discs WERE approved a second time. If you look at the list you will see CE Aero, CE Aviar, CE Eagle, CE Firebird, etc., all listed in addition to those molds original approval.

Working Stiff wrote:Sorry, time frame problem. The discs we are talking about were regular production Innova discs like Aviars and Stingrays. DGA took those discs and factored them and submitted them to the PDGA for approval. This was wwwaaayyy back in time and has nothing to do with DGA being more "acceptable" than GDS.

Yeah, I wasn't so much comparing DGA to GDS, as much as questioning why the approved factored discs are considered to be legit while there's this much debate over whether bending a disc is legal. Since the DGA factored discs are cool with the PDGA, couldn't one theoretically set up a shop that manufactures and sells nothing but factored discs? Just buying discs from all manufacturers in bulk, and tweaking them ever so slightly? If that's the case, most of the questions of what kind modifications are OK seem trivial.

i would guess that the reapproval of Champ/CE discs had to do solely with the name change. (prove me wrong, discstorians)

why is the SOS legal? because it too is named Sirius Orion Long Straight... does it share a single mold part with the real SOLS? maybe the core... the top and wing are not common to the SOLS.

good times!

No idea. I didn't know the SOS WAS legal. It's not on the list. If I was the TD, I'd say no.

If the CE Eagle is a name change, wouldn't the Star Eagle be a name change? I'd say it was early in the "same discs in different plastic" stage and they had not yet decided not to have discs re-approved for each plastic type EXCEPT there was a long-standing precedent...the Discraft Hawk had long been available in Competition and Tournament plastic with one approval. The Tournament Hawk was sold as the "HD Hawk," as much of a name change as the CE Eagle. Also, none of the KC Pro discs were re-approved. So, I still don't know why the CE discs were re-approved.

Back to the factored disc...how can you tell who factored it? Example:
Player 1: Hey, he has a factored Wraith.
TD: Is that true?
Player 2: Yes.
TD: You can't throw that. It's illegal.
Player 2: No, it's legal. Innova did the factoring. I traded Barry a Sanny Roc for it.
TD: Well, er, um, OK...since you got it from Barry, it's OK.
Player 1 rolls eyes since he knows Player 2 has never met Barry and probably factored the Wraith in his garage.

Anyway, if your contention that a manufacturer can make a post-production modification to any disc and it is still legal is true(and given that no one has posted anything to the contrary I'm going to assume you are right,) I declare everything discussed on this thread as moot. So long as it is at least 21 cm in diameter and the weight corresponds to the legal g per cm diameter rule, throw whatever you want.

A factored disc is not legal automatically. It has to be submitted to the PDGA for approval along with the fee and more than 500 of them made. Someone can't set up a tool shop to factor discs and sell them as legal without the approval step.

ZAMson wrote:did Innova have to resubmit the Champ models once they started trimming the flash off the nose? seeing as how so many tech specs still show a fully-flashed diameter, i think not.

I have no idea why, but the CE discs WERE approved a second time. If you look at the list you will see CE Aero, CE Aviar, CE Eagle, CE Firebird, etc., all listed in addition to those molds original approval.

Furthur wrote:Dave, why are some CE discs (like the CE Aero, CE Aviar, CE Eagle, CE Firebird, etc.) approved along with the same mold? Is it because there was so much flashing on the original CE discs that the mold was considered different?

ZAMson wrote:did Innova have to resubmit the Champ models once they started trimming the flash off the nose? seeing as how so many tech specs still show a fully-flashed diameter, i think not.

I have no idea why, but the CE discs WERE approved a second time. If you look at the list you will see CE Aero, CE Aviar, CE Eagle, CE Firebird, etc., all listed in addition to those molds original approval.

Furthur wrote:Dave, why are some CE discs (like the CE Aero, CE Aviar, CE Eagle, CE Firebird, etc.) approved along with the same mold? Is it because there was so much flashing on the original CE discs that the mold was considered different?

Dave D wrote:Sorry, I don't know.

The rumor at the time was the flex test. I forget the rumor, and since it was from a completely unreliable source if I could remember the details it wouldn't matter anyway. But the rumor I heard had something to do with the flex test.

DaveMac on QuickCool discs wrote:Typically any Gateway disc with a QC( We get QC by faster cycle times or dropping the discs in water or both!) on the back will have a higher dome, less concave on the wing as well as less deflection angle from nose to bead ( bottom edge).Some times the wings will even get puffy!

All 3 of these will make a disc less over stable from "launch climb' to glide and fade.Launch climb is the ability to make a disc climb from hyzer to flat or even to an under stable glide.Launch climb is usually effected most by the deflection height from nose to bead,Concaved wings also add resistance to the climb and eventual turn, but even if this wing shape is flat, transition height will be a huge factor....QC lets a disc cool to shape outside of the mold. This reduces transition height and the additional shrinkage outside the mold allows for the nose to draw closer to the bead ( or bottom).The less the transition height, the easier or faster air passes under the disc ( especially towards the spin side) creating more lift on the side away from the spin side.

Furtur wrote:No comments on the fact that a manufacturer can change the shape of a disc outside the mold, but a player can't?

I thought I did when I said this, but I guess I deleted a line.

Working Stiff wrote:Anyway, if your contention that a manufacturer can make a post-production modification to any disc and it is still legal is true(and given that no one has posted anything to the contrary I'm going to assume you are right,) I declare everything discussed on this thread as moot.

At some point the end of that sentence was "I declare everything discussed on this thread as moot and the PDGA a huge joke of a ruling body." I guess I decided that would flame the pro-PDGA folks and I'm not really anti-PDGA so that's not really an argument I wanted to start. However if manufacturers can make post-production modifications and the PDGA has no oversight AND the discs are still Okey-Dokey for sanctioned play, that's a bad rule. It defeats the 500 disc rule that Chuck has mentioned if Innova can specially modify 100 Eagles to be just exactly like Ken Climo wants them and then gives all 100 of those discs to Ken and they are still considered legal.

If you don't think a manufacturer would do a special run just for one player, consider that Super Stupid Soft Wizards originally were "George Smith Wizards." George likes a super-floppy putter, and Dave McCormack made some just for him. A few extras filtered out of the shop and a buzz about them started, resulting in Gateway making a full run of them. But for awhile, George Smith was the only guy with access to those putters. Was that an unfair advantage?

Bad rule. If the approval process is supposed to guarantee a certain standard to be met on all discs being used in sanctioned play, why leave a loophole in it big enough to drive a bus through?

I actually like the idea of post molding modification by the manufacturer. However, it doesn't really fit well into the pdga's current rules on disc modification. If I can't bend a disc to change it's flight, then a disc golf company can't dry it a certain way to do the same thing.

I don't have a problem with small runs of unique discs (like Quick Cool Illusions), even if they were only for a small amount of players. Look at golf. Do you think Tiger Woods is using off the shelf clubs? Hell no; I'd imagine he has his swing constantly analyzed, and the lofts on his clubs are changing all the time.

The main goal of a disc golf company is to turn a profit. I don't think they would hold back a "magic" team disc if they knew that it would sell very well to other's not on the team. I still think we need some sort of approval process for new designs, but the current system is a total joke.

Small time-Big time. We like to compare the PDGA to what other ruling bodies do, but invariably we wind up comparing them to big-time organizations like the PGA. The PDGA does not have the money or resources to fix most of the things we complain about, and we already complain that memberships are too high so i don't guess that is an option to make more money. Realistically the PDGA can't enforce the rules it already has, and I think part of the reason there is no clear-cut ruling on tuning is the reality that there is really nothing they can do about it anyway so why pass an unenforceable rule? We all know that there have been runs of discs that hit the shelves that could not pass the flex test, but there is no requirement that the discs be tested run to run. A simple as the solution sounds, there is no way the PDGA can afford to test each run of discs and no way the manufacturers would let them hold up production waiting to get test result back, so it can not and will not happen. There is no money to pay an army of Marshal's to check in all the players discs at each NT or Major, so a tuned disc will not be discovered even if there was a rule. Repeat after me...small time. So it is what it is. If that keeps you awake at night, well, I guess you chose the wrong hobby. Sorry.

Part of Davey Mac's "disc testing" rant is that we have to start acting like a big-time sport if we want to attract big-time money. He has a 15 year-old story I've heard thousands of times about an unnamed sponsor who was interested in dumping cash into disc golf, but laughed when they saw the rulebook and said we needed at least 50 pages of rules before they would consider us serious enough to sponsor. He has a point, but it's not like that is a big missing piece to an otherwise complete puzzle. Even if we spent a lot of money on new rules and enforcement, there are still very few of us and almost no spectators. People call me a jerk, but if I was a business I'm sure I could reach more people by sponsoring my local swim team and hanging a huge banner on the pool fence that was there during swim team events and open pool time. I'm 100% sure I could reach more potential customers for far less money doing that or one of a thousand of other more cost effective sponsorship opportunities. I'm pretty sure that in the end the mystery sponsor would decide NOT to pony up the cash for disc golf no matter how thick the rule book was. Right now, where disc golf is at, you would have to suck in somebody with cash who loves the sport and decided to take the loss to support something they love, because from a business end it makes no sense to sponsor disc golf right now.

He has a 15 year-old story I've heard thousands of times about an unnamed sponsor who was interested in dumping cash into disc golf, but laughed when they saw the rulebook and said we needed at least 50 pages of rules before they would consider us serious enough to sponsor.

We would have printed the book in a larger typeface to get to 50 pages and the old sponsor could read it more easily...

Yeah, there was a bit of a cluster f*** recently with that. Innova's Pro Starfire <L mold> was a perfectly legal disc. But the change of name to Star SL was significant enough to require it to be resubmitted for testing. This never even occurred to Innova so the Star SL was not tournament legal for about a year and a half after it's release.

Animix wrote:Yeah, there was a bit of a cluster f*** recently with that. Innova's Pro Starfire <L mold> was a perfectly legal disc. But the change of name to Star SL was significant enough to require it to be resubmitted for testing. This never even occurred to Innova so the Star SL was not tournament legal for about a year and a half after it's release.

Except nobody noticed. The PDGA didn't send out a bulletin to TD's to remind them to declare the SL illegal in the players meeting. People threw them with no consequences.

Nothing happened until you got to the Discraft-sponsored USADGC and the Star SL AND Pro Starfire were declared illegal for that event along with the Impact (which at that point had been sold only at DGLO in a box with a big "This disc is not PDGA approved" sign on it) and the Turbo-Putt (not enough in circulation at that point according to Discraft.) That must have done the trick. Once it was declared illegal at a PDGA Major, the SL turned up on the approved list pretty quick after that.

Anyway, that was one of the events that helped bring about the Tech Standards revision. Up until that point, most people had no idea that a disc could change molds but not names and stay approved, but a mold that was approved but changed names had to be re-approved. You can point fingers and claim Innova didn't know, but the TL and the FL had been re-submitted and re-approved by the time of the SL fiasco. So Innova DID know, they just screwed up and got caught.